| History |
 |
The Royal Mail Ship Titanic was the last grand dream of the Gilded Age. It was designed to be the greatest achievement of an era of prosperity, confidence and propriety. Although no one knew it, the world was about to change drastically. Radio had been invented in 1901. The Wright Brothers' first successful flight was in 1903. The old presumptions about class, morals, and gender-roles were about to be shattered. If the concept of Titanic was the climax of that age, then perhaps its sinking was the curtain that marked the end of the old drama, and the start of a new one.
The Royal Mail Ship Titanic was constructed around 1911. She cost about $7.3 million to create and was considered the greatest ship of the time. The Titanic was designed to remain afloat with any two or three compartments flooded and to able endure a collision at the joint of two compartments in that case. The Titanic cruise ship was regarded to be unsinkable, to be herself a lifeboat.
The Titanic cruise liner was 269 meters long, 28 meters wide, and a gross tonnage of 45,000 tons. The Titanic could hold 3,500 passengers and crew members but carried life boats for just over 1,000. Titanic boasted a squash court, swimming pool, and a gymnasium with a mechanical horse.
The Titanic carried 20 lifeboats, the requirements of The British Board of regulations. However, these standards proved far insufficient when at 11:40 p.m, on the 14th April 1912, the greatest disaster of maritime history occurred: the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
|